Tucson, Arizona, February 3, 1959
Jack Frye, one of the founders of Trans World Airlines, was killed in an automobile accident here tonight. He was 54 years old.
The car he was driving was in a collision with another car at an intersection in the southeastern part of the city. He was pronounced dead at St. Mary's Hospital one hour after the accident.
The driver of the other car, Mrs. Rosabell Wright, 42, of Tucson, was uninjured.
Mr. Frye was a former head of Trans World Airlines and the president of the Frye Corporation, manufacturer of the F-1 Safari.
Mr. Frye was in Tucson organizing local financial support to bring to Tucson the Helio- continued........
Aircraft Company from Pittsburgh, Kan. He had been living in Tucson for the last six months.
Mr. Frye left T.W.A. in 1947 to become president of the General Aniline and Film Corporation. He was a pioneer in the air transport industry, making his mark in the then infant industry as president of Transcontinental and Western Air where he was associated with Howard Hughes.
He spent thirty-six years in aviation. He helped build T.W.A. from an operation with 600 employees, to a $70,000,000 corporation with more than 17,000 employees.
During his lifetime, he had a record of 7,000 hours in the air. He left T.W.A. after thirteen years to join Aniline, where after a period, as President, he became Chairman of the Board.
Mr. Frye's career was colorful and exciting. A rancher at heart-he rode herd on his father's ranch in Texas-after that at 19, he began his career as a stunt flier.
Many operating methods and techniques introduced by Mr. Frye at T.W.A. are now standard practices on the world's principle airlines.
A leader in the development of high-altitude all-weather flying equipment, he worked with Donald Douglas to develop the first of the famous DC-series planes. In 1934, when he became president of T.W.A., he had cut transcontinental flying to sixteen hours. His plans contributed to the well-known Constellation and his pioneering had then cut cross-country flying from a 48-hour trip to approximately ten hours.
Differences with Howard Hughes finally led him to his resignation and his almost immediate acceptance of the Government's offer to take over the job at General Aniline.
In 1950 he filed a divorce suit against his wife, Helen, who was a former wife of Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr., They were married on January 1, 1941.
Mr. Frye used to spend as much time as possible at his ranch near Flagstaff, Ariz. He had written numerous newspaper and magazine articles on aviation, but he had other literary concerns. His home library contained, it was said, everything from eighteenth century poetry to Saint Exupery.
Above six feet in height, weighing more than 200 pounds, he liked expensive tweeds and worsteds as "snappy looking" as his planes.
Tucson Arizona
February 4, 1959
Jack Frye, 54, former president of Trans World Airlines, was killed last night in a traffic accident at an intersection south of Tucson.
Sheriff's deputies reported Frye was thrown 40 feet when his car collided with one which pulled into the road in front of him. The driver of the other car, Rosabell M. Wright, 42, of Tucson, was unhurt.
The accident occurred at the intersection of the Ajo highway and the Hughes access road.
Frye, veteran of 36 years in aviation, was the first president of TWA and helped build the airline from a small operation with 600 employees to a $70 million corporation with more than 17,000 employees.
The firm specializes in aircraft requiring smaller-than-usual landing fields.
Frye, who had a record of 7,000 hours in the air, was the holder of the first commercial pilot's license issued in Arizona and brought the first commercial plane flight into Tucson.
After 13 years as the head of TWA, he left to become president of General Aniline and Film Corp. Later he became chairman of the board of the firm.
As president of the early-day Standard Airlines, based in Los Angeles, he set up in 1927, a route linking that city with Phoenix and Tucson. For many years Frye owned a home in Oak Creek Canyon and a ranch in Spring Valley, northwest of Flagstaff.
HELIO PLANS UNCHANGED
Frye died in St. Mary's hospital at 8:35 p.m., almost two hours after the accident which occurred at 6:49 p.m. Multiple fractures, head and internal injuries were listed as the cause of death.
Driver of the second car, Mrs. Rosabell M. Wright 43, of 4281 E. 28th Street, suffered only minor injuries. A witness told sheriff's deputies Mrs. Wright's station wagon ran a stop sign at a high rate of speed and slammed into Frye's rented 1959 sedan.
Deputy S.L. Wade reported no skid marks were laid down by either car. He said Mrs. Wright, whose speed was estimated at 45-50 miles per an hour, appeared to have swerved her vehicle to the right in an effort to miss Frye, but instead hit the left rear of his car.
The impact locked the two vehicles together momentarily, Wade said, and Mrs. Wright's car spun around, ending up some 40 feet away facing west. Frye's car continued off the edge of Palo Verde for another 178 feet, coming to a stop about 40 feet out in the desert. Frye was thrown nearly 40 feet from his car shortly before it stopped.
Mrs. Wright, a linen clerk at the Veterans Hospital, was cited for failure to control her speed and for running a stop sign. She was treated for torn ligaments in the right ankle at Tucson Medical center last night and released.
Deputy Wade said the visibility was poor at the intersection. Mrs. Frye was notified of her husband's death while visiting in Nevada and returned to Tucson early this morning.
Funeral services will be conducted at Adair Funeral Chapel at 11:00 a.m., Saturday. The body will be in state at the funeral home on Friday afternoon and evening. Burial will be in Grantwood Memorial Park.
Frye, who lived at the Lodge on the Desert, 306 N. Alvernon Way, was president of Frye Corp., a company which was developing his four-engine Safari transport planes.
Mr. Frye was the 8th person to die on Pima County roads in 1959, one more than had been killed at this time last year.
A pilot with a flying record of 7,000 hours, Frye died when his car smashed into the side of a car that pulled into the road in front of him.
Sheriff's deputies said the impact hurled his body 40 feet. The other driver, identified as Rosabell M. Wright, 42, Tucson, escaped with minor injuries.
Frye was president of Standard Airlines of Los Angeles in 1927 when the firm pioneered airline service to the East. He also was a pilot for the company and flew the first commercial airliners into Phoenix and Tucson.
In 1930, Standard merged into Western Air Express Corp., and later that year into Transcontinental and Western Airlines, now Trans World Airlines.
He became president of TWA in 1934 when it had a payroll of 600. When he left 13 years later, the firm was a 70-million-dollar operation with more than 17,000 employees.
After leaving TWA, Frye became president of General Aniline and Film Corp. of New York and later chairman of the board.
Later he became associated with Helio Aircraft Co. and moved to Tucson eight months ago to negotiate transfer of the company plant to Tucson from Pittsburg, Kan. the firm specializes in aircraft requiring smaller-than-usual landing fields.
He held the first transport pilot's license issued in Arizona.
Frye's widow, Nevada, was visiting a brother in Las Vegas, Nev., and was scheduled to return to Tucson today.
A veteran of 36 years in aviation, Frye was the president of TWA and helped build the airline from a small operation, to a $70 million corporation with more than 17,000 employees.
With a record of 7,000 hours in the air, Frye was the holder of the first commercial pilot's license issued in Arizona, and brought the first commercial plane into Tucson.
For almost 10 years, he was married to Helen Varner Frye of Sedona, who remembers him as a "remarkable man, brilliant and ingenious." The two met while Frye and Howard Hughes were building their first Constellation in Los Angeles, and were married in January of 1941.
During their life together in Sedona, Mrs. Frye said all commuting to their ranch home near Flagstaff (Sedona) and most of their travel around the country, was made by air in their private plane. They were divorced in 1950.
Sedona Legend Helen Frye